The Dirty, Rotten, Terrible, Scary, Fattening Truth About Alcohol

The first thing that comes to mind when you think about college are parties. College parties are based around the idea that the more out of control you are, the more fun you’re having. So college kids Thursday through Saturday night guzzle beer, vodka, tequila, mixed drinks, wine... whatever they can get their hands on. And I know this from experience. I have had my own share of $9 handles of vodka and cheap frat beers. The experience can be exciting but the effects are lasting. Especially if you are apart of the majority of students who consider the weekend as a mandatory party.

This sounds repetitive, but alcohol really does have a shocking effect on the body, more than just the temporary inebriation. It makes you fat, depressed, hungry, slow, and much more.

Facts About Alcohol That You Don’t Want To Know, But Can’t Help But Read

• The typical shot of alcohol has 1.5 oz, but just 1 ounce of alcohol is about calorically equivalent to a baked potato or a glass of milk.
• Chronic male drinkers (and yes, you are considered a chronic drinker at the rate most students drink in college) have a reduced ability to get an erection, decreased sperm production and lower sperm counts.
• Alcohol affects the upper part of the brain that stores self control (obviously, considering how many guys get lucky in college). However, self control is what keeps you on track for diets. Plus, alcohol increases hunger and cravings. Mix together lack of self control and increased hunger/cravings and you get drunk late night munchies. Good bye diet.
• The brain continues to develop through the early twenties and studies have showed that alcohol may impair brain development.
• It takes a fully grown man 1 hour for a HALF an ounce of alcohol to leave his body. Three half ounces make one normal shot.
• Studies show that when alcohol is eaten before a meal, you eat an average of 20% more. When alcohol is eaten with a meal, you eat an average of 33% more.
• Alcohol raises the level of hydrochloric acid in your body which impairs the digestion process and causes you to feel bloated and fat.
• Alcohol is a depressant. Ever notice how in the beginning of the night you feel excited and happy, but by they end of the night you are negative and sad? It’s because alcohol initially elevates serotonin levels but as you drink more, it lowers those levels of serotonin. As you drink more, your tolerance goes up which forces you to drink even more in order to feel that initial leap in serotonin levels.

Table of Calories Per Alcoholic Drink

Alcohol	Serving	Calories
Beer-regular	12 oz	149
Beer-light	12 oz	110
gin, vodka, rum, tequila, whiskey	1 oz (average shot is 1.5 oz)	65
Red Wine	4 oz	80
White Wine	4 oz	75
Champagne	4 oz	84

And that’s not including the calories for the drinks used as chasers or to mix with.

So... Then What Do You Do?

There’s no avoiding drinking in college. And you shouldn’t avoid drinking in college because it can be really fun. In moderation. What I suggest is committing yourself to only drinking once or twice a week. And don’t feel like just because it’s the weekend you HAVE to get drunk. When you get to the point where you feel like you have to party and get wasted in order to have a good time... you’re in trouble. Considering that during the week you stress your body with school work and then on the weekend you stress your body even more with partying, eating junk food, and being hung over, you don’t give your body a time to rest. Your mind needs to have some mental down time in your week. Even just cutting down to drinking once or twice a week and not allowing yourself to get completely intoxicated to the point of memory loss, can have an incredible influence on your mood and weight. You may feel like your left out by not going out and partying every night, but when you wake up feeling refreshed and not bloated and your friends wake up feeling sick and tired, you won’t be too jealous anymore. There’s no real secret to alcohol. Everyone knows that it’s bad for you, maybe not to the extent that it is, but they know its not good for you. You can’t drink excessively and still feel good, but you can drink in moderation on the weekends, have a good time, feel okay the next morning, and not damage your body permanently.

The Dreaded Freshman 15

According to cnn.com, 66% of adults in America are overweight and 36% of adults in America are obese. In order to be obese, over 1/3 of your body weight is pure fat. People consider it inevitable that when you go to college, you are going to gain 15 pounds in the first year. For the majority of students, this is true and I have seen it happen to a lot of people. However, if you recognize what causes the freshman 15 and act on it, then you don’t have to be apart of that majority who gains weight and still looks good going into sophomore year.

Causes of the Freshman 15

1. ALCOHOL: It sounds like a stereotypical response but it’s true. According to Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, alcohol and beer raises the level of hydrochloric acid in your stomach which doesn’t allow you to digest your food properly and therefore makes you bloated. Not only does alcohol make you FEEL bloated but it adds on the pounds as well. According to livestrong.com, the average shot of vodka (1 oz.) has 65 calories. This means if you have 7 shots over the course of a weekend for four weeks, you are adding 1,820 calories to your monthly diet.(livestrong.com). And that’s just vodka. The average 12 oz. beer has 149 calories, the average 4 oz serving of red wine has 80 calories and the average 4 oz. serving of white wine has 75 calories. With the amount of alcohol that students have in college, it’s no wonder that they gain weight. And then there’s reason number two...
2. DRUNCHIES AND DORM FOOD: Drunchies are munchies that you get when you’re drunk. When you’re drunk and craving food it’s generally not a salad or some steamed broccoli. When you’re drunk, you want nachos and pasta and cookies, basically you want to CARBO LOAD. You’re discipline of eating healthy goes out the window because that part of your brain is shut off. It’s instant gratification time. Dorm food doesn’t help either. Dorms feed student’s what they want and what is cheap. Students want pizza and ice cream and all the things you couldn’t eat 24/7 when you lived at home, not exactly the slimming food. The other downside is that it’s available for students to eat whenever they want. There’s no waiting for mom to finish dinner or for the lunch bell to ring. You just have to walk down to the dining hall and eat, even if you aren’t hungry. This plus drinking gets you to the Freshman 10. There’s one more factor...
3. LACK OF ACTIVITY: In high school, most kids played sports or had p.e. class. In college, often times students stop playing sports because there’s no city organized sports teams, only the more competitive college teams. With no sport to give them a fun outlet to work out, many just stop working out completely and the longer you don’t work out the harder it is to get back into working out.

With this lack of activity and added calories of drunchies, dorm food, and drinking, we get the FRESHMAN 15. The reason why it is so important to not gain the freshman 15 is because as we grow older, our metabolism already begins to slow down. During the beginning years of college, we still have a quicker metabolism than we will in 5 or 10 more years. If we get into the habit of eating and drinking the way we do in college, then we will gain even more weight as we grow older.

So, in order to not be apart of the 66% of adults that are overweight and the 36% of adults that are obese in America, it is crucial to not kick over that first domino with the freshman 15. Here are some tips to avoid or lose the freshman 15.

HOW TO AVOID/LOSE THE FRESHMAN 15

DRINK LESS

This can be difficult because the more you drink, the higher tolerance you get which forces you to drink more in order to get drunk. What I do is allow myself a set amount of alcohol for the weekend and no more. I do this by either putting my hard alcohol into a water bottle for the weekend or buying my own beer. I also only drink twice a week at most. You can’t expect to not gain weight if you’re drinking like a fish all week. They call it a beer belly for a reason.

SAY NO TO DRUNCHIES

This can be the hardest tip of all. When you’re drunk, you want to eat. The way I conquered this is by not having snacks available to me in my dorm room. I found that when I didn’t have snacks readily available, I wouldn’t eat unnecessarily. When snacks are just laying around, it’s much harder to resist. If you really feel the need to snack, have healthy snack like sugar snap peas, carrots and hummus, or apples in your dorm.

PICK THE HEALTHIEST DORM FOOD

Dorm food consists mostly of pizza, pasta, bread and rice, however they also have salads, vegetables, and sandwiches. I personally have a sweet tooth so this was the toughest thing for me to get past. So, instead of telling myself that I couldn’t eat any of the items that I love, I allowed myself to eat them on the weekend. Just by cutting your crap food calories out of your week and save them for the weekend is extremely helpful.

NO BORED EATING

Just because there is food at your disposal whenever you want, doesn’t mean you have to eat it. Often times, the reason why you feel hungry in between meals is because you’re thirsty. I found carrying a water bottle around with me at all times and making a habit of drinking it constantly stifles this need to eat when I’m not hungry.

MOVE AROUND

Walk to class, make it a ritual to go to the gym with your friends, go on bike rides instead of watching t.v. ANYTHING is better than doing nothing. The more you’re out and about, the more your body will crave to be active.

Those are my full proof tips that I followed as well to stay clear away from gaining the weight. You don’t have to starve or be a sober sally in order to avoid the Freshman 15!

And for those of you with a kitchen...

Healthy, Cheap, Delicious Recipe of the Week!

Lettuce Wrap Tacos

cook time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of beans or cooked chicken or any other meat

1 corn (with cut corn off of the cob) or 1/4 cup canned corn

2 leaves of lettuce

1/2 avocado

juice from 1/2 a lime

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or chili powder or 1 seeded and chopped Jalapeno

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 teaspoon olive oil or butter

1. Add butter or olive oil to a pan on medium heat. Add all of the ingredients except for the two leaves of lettuce and 1/2 avocado to the pan and stir. Let it heat for about five minutes (no more than five minutes) while stirring every so often.
2. While that is heating up, lay out the two leaves of lettuce and add the 1/2 sliced avocado to the two leaves.
3. When the food in the pan is warm enough, evenly distribute to the two leaves and you’ve got lettuce wrap tacos!

This dish is cheap to make, incredibly easy, and very quick. It is also much more filling than it looks and you get an extremely nutritious and low calorie meal!

DISCLAIMER: I am not a trained physician or dietician yet. I am merely a student, studying to become one. The information I receive is from my own studies of a multitude of books, live lectures, movies, medical journals, and health newsletters. I am merely giving facts already known along with my own personal experiences.